You weren’t supposed to be mad at me!

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst on Friday continued to fight a battle that he had lost three days before when Ted Cruz defeated him for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination.

Cruz and his allies had effectively cast Dewhurst as a tax-and-spend moderate, a criticism that Dewhurst was still eager to rebut during a rare meeting of the Legislative Budget Board at the Texas Capitol.

“There are a lot of Texans who are so mad and angry at Washington — and I’m mad and angry at Washington, too — (they) have a hard time understanding how any other form of government, such as state government, could actually cut taxes, which we did, and cut spending, which we did,” Dewhurst said.

Allow me to translate that: “All that anger and fear and hatred and mistrust we’ve been stirring up with our lies and disinformation and propaganda – that was supposed to help me, not be used against me! Why can’t you people act rationally when we appeal to your basest instincts? Don’t you understand how government really works?”

On a more serious note, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson has been saying since last Tuesday that he was going to run for Lite Guv in 2014 regardless of what The Dew does. That’s a long way away and anything can happen, but I tend to believe him. Given that Patterson is not a culture warrior, it’ll be interesting to see how a Dewhurst-Patterson primary would shape up. Will Dewhurst play with fire again, or will he learn from his experience?